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It is probably safe to say that the flaring of frustrations when Gaviota’s future is under discussion is on the short list with death and taxes as one of the few certainties in life. With a warm spring evening serving as the backdrop, the relatively recently minted Gaviota Planning Advisory Committee (GavPAC) met this week in the auditorium at the Brandon School in Goleta—easternmost gateway to the world-class region, just a few miles away, that they are angling to serve. GavPAC is charged with the dubious task of crafting a set of recommendations for the County Supervisors, who are struggling toward a general plan for the roughly 31,000-acre Gaviota area.

Paul Wellman

Mark Lloyd

The 11-member board of stakeholder citizens got together in hopes of teasing out specific areas of commonalty and tension among the many individuals who care about the Gaviota. After more than three hours, despite a room full of good intentions and the efforts of County Long Range Planning staffers—the folks charged with facilitating the multi-year process—the meeting went the way of so many similar efforts in years past: potential progress log-jammed by divergent ideals and desires.

Paul Wellman

Michael Feeney (left) and Philip McKenna

In fairness to the efforts, Wednesday night’s meeting was really the first time the group was looking to move beyond gathering input from the public, something they have been doing via several community workshops and van tours of the Gaviota neighborhood since they formally formed last November. The hope this week was to recap the public testimony and make sure nothing was missing from the six specific areas of intrigue on the Gaviota that were used to organize the workshops: Open Space, Transportation, Energy and Infrastructure, Public Recreation, Agriculture, and Boundary Planning. Then, with a little help from the crowd of 50-plus people in attendance, GavPAC was going to figure out the ways in which these various concerns and priorities for planning both dovetail and clash.

The first step alone—the simple recapping, which was scheduled for only 10 minutes, as per the agenda—lasted well over an hour as the various committee members postured and opined along traditional battle lines. “This will go on for hours if not several more meetings if we continue like this,” summed up GavPAC member Mark Lloyd, a private land-use consultant with extensive experience in the Gaviota.

Paul Wellman

Public comment period.

The constipation improved a little as the group moved on to identifying “common threads” betwixt the various opinions. Butcher paper was put on the wall and county staffer Vicki Parker, magic marker in hand, started taking notes as seeds of compromise started flying around the room. Vague but noble notions like maintaining the rural feel of Gaviota, protecting visual resources, insuring the survival of agriculture, having a long-term perspective in the process, expanding recreational opportunities, and staying flexible as the future unfolds made the list along alongside more specific ideas like protecting biodiversity, building a strong following for Gaviota-grown-or-raised food products, and easing the miles of red tape that prevent landowners from practicing “good stewardship.”

Paul Wellman

Public comment period.

This portion of the meeting was an optimistic riff in an overall stagnated tune, and several boardmembers noted the temporarily upbeat attitude. “The reason we are here is because the system is broken,” summed up GavPAC member and landowner Guner Tautrim. “It doesn’t allow us to do what makes sense…But this [exercise] shows that it is all connected and that a holistic approach is possible and necessary.”

Then, with time running out on the hearing, the group moved on to identifying the “tensions” between the various visions for the Gaviota. Here, age-old divisions bubbled quickly and easily to the surface. Exchanges were civil and often even pleasant, but it became abundantly clear—as topics like water, money, private versus public interests, and the perilous viability of agriculture as we know it were put on the list—that the hopefulness evident in the earlier portion of the evening could still be quickly drowned out by the stakeholders’ differences.

Paul Wellman

Public comment period.

In fact, one of the last speakers of the night, GavPAC member Michael Feeney, did what he himself described as “pouring cold water on ideas.” Feeney, executive director of the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County, is a grizzled veteran of this process, having taken part in the two prior attempts at finding common ground in the name of Gaviota. He alluded to county government’s limitations, both fiscal and in its sphere of influence. He pointed to the fact that the rural nature of Gaviota (i.e. not many development projects) means very little opportunity to extract public benefits from landowners. And he noted the difficulty of convincing people that scenic views are not necessarily the most important feature of environmentally significant regions that they are trying to protect for the long haul. Feeney very quickly exposed just how much hard work the committee has ahead of them if they are to reach any meaningful conclusion within the next 18 months.

To that end, the next GavPAC meeting will be held April 21 at the Las Cruces school on the Gaviota Coast.

Comments

This is an easy problem. The no-nothing-nowhere crowd, who believe they have the right to dictate the use of anyone's land, should raise money, buy the land, and set up a trust to maintain it in its current state in perpetuity. Problem solved - with the added attractions that it forces the objectionista to put its money where its mouth is instead of paralyzing everything with the cheapo lawsuits allowed in this nutty state and indicates some return of private property rights.

Perhaps Mr. John Locke would prefer to live in Texas, a state where in some communities they have no zoning laws at all? Would Mr. Locke agree that his neighbor should be able to drill for oil in his back yard? Or operate a dog kennel? Or a Red Light establishment? Just curious.

starly88, you MUST be an environazi - that is the label I apply to environmentally concerned people who don't understand the concept of compromise, hence the no/nothing/nowhere comment.

I prefer to have zoning. But it seems to me there was a recent proposal to put 30 or so houses on 20,000 acres on the Gaviota and thereby remove the 20,000 acres from development forever at Mr. Osgood's (I think it was his plan) expense. That woul be one house for every 666 acres. AND the public would have gotten a park and beach access to boot. Seemed like a terrific deal to me, but was killed by the objectionista.

So please spare me the all-or-nothing nonsense and learn the art of compromise. And so far as your comment about Texas is concerned, I highly recommend that you read a recent article in the Economist comparing the failed state of California with the vibrantly healthy state of Texas. While a few parts of Texas have no zoning, there is much that is zoned. But apparently you would negatively judge the entire state by a few counties. Bet you're actually a Bush-hater and that's your REAL reason for dissing Texas.

EXCUSE ME, but I think Guner Tautrim, a sixth generation Gaviota Coast farmer is the real visionary here.He's a very positive guy who believes we need to look at new ways to keep farming and ranching viable in this area.As far as I can tell, Mr. Tautrim is not in favor of allowing Orange County-style subdivisions and he IS very interested in education us non-farmers about the challenges he and others face. If I am intrepreting correctly from my conversation with him, Guner believes that things MUST change on the Gaviota Coast and that we must keep these changes scaled down to an appropriate size to fit the character of the existing area. How to define "appropriate size" appears to be the real question. I would like to hear more from Mr Tautrim rather than from the angry guy above.I'm in favor of preserving small scale farming and ranching,recreation, biodiversity and open space on the Gaviota Coast.

Change is happening on the planet. The Gaviota Coast represents a wonderful opportunity to plan how we humans can survive into the future with climate change, population growth and food and water scarcity. This is beyond property rights and viewsheds. This is survival for a biodiverse community and our place in it. Lifestyle choices. Appropriate scale of projects. Healthier foods grown. Adapting to the geology. Remembering the ocean is where our land use "stuff" ends up. Compromise and flexibility but only after everyone takes a deep breath.

Hey I'm not in favor of not in favor of allowing Orange County-style subdivisions either. My point about the proposed development that the objectionist just killed was EXACTLY that it would prevent that kind of development, preserve the beauty of the Gaviota coast, and provide a park and beach access to ALL the people, not just a chosen few. Sorry of some of you think property rights is an irrevelant concept, but that's a rather fundamental precept of a free society.

And the objective of maintaing farming and ranching in this area is a good one, but somehow those kinds of restrictions on land use end up hugely enriching the farmer or rancher further out in time because of the complete lack of enforcement of such restrictions. One has only look at the affordable housing experience in SB to see this.

Actually Mr. Jon Locke the original Osgood proposal was for 54 homes on 400 or so acres. Later iterations added more land and more homes. Essentially each home was around 5000 to 12,000 sq feet and was to have extensive landscaping and miles of new roads were to be built. The average lot was 4 acres. If built it would have looked exactly like up scale tracts in Orange County. And no, environmentalists did not kill the project which is still barely alive. Rather the economy killed it....the implosion of the housing bubble. Oh, but I forgot.....the housing bubble must have been concocted by enviros.

starly, while I don't know what the original Osgood proposal was, the last one I saw read that the total land involved was 22,000, not 400, acres, and number of houses was (I think) 300, not 54. So 700 acres per house, not 4. And under that proposal much of the 22,000 acres became essentially unbuildable and/or public access. And I was referring to a comment about Newport Beach, not OC - ever been to Newport Beach? rows and rows of 'oceanview' homes, barely larger then their lots, as far as the eye can see - just what the last Osgood proposal would guarantee NEVER COULD HAPPEN. And I made no comments about the housing bubble. So try to stay on point and not fling about accusations that are not only silly, but have nothing to do with the discussion.

The environazis, as opposed to environmentally concerned reasonable citizens, while arguably trying to do some good things, have contributed mightily to the failure of California by failing completely to take an evenhanded reasonable approach to environmentalism and thereby causing enormous waste of time, energy, and money. Heard the latest? Object to windmills because they're ugly, object to solar because it might threaten a lizard, object to nuclear just because (how many people have been harmed in a nuclear accident? none.) And object to oil drilling because of a 40 years ago oil spill on a rig that, illegally, did not have a blowout protector. Tell you what the US needs protection from - radical unreasonable environazis.

Unless JohnLocke could specify what plan he is referring to as encompassing 22,000 acres and only 30 houses that "environazis" supposedly killed then I suspect he is either misinformed or just plain making things up. If he can cite the specific plan or at least provide some details or reference then I apologize in advance.

The 22,000 acres number is from a National Park Service study that defined the Gaviota coast area - the definition may well vary from one discussion to another. But since I can no longer find the sources for the 300 house number I'll withdraw the comment. I NEVER 'make things up' except my own opinions and my own mind.